Help Educate Poor Slum Children In India

Education is a pretty broad concept that surpasses the four walls of a classroom. The core aim of education is to foster all round development of a child. All round development essentially means intellectual, physical, moral, sensible and social development. To fulfil these objectives, there is a prime need of striking a balance between syllabus, curriculum, books and also co-curricular activities beyond that. Co-Curricular activities are those which are undertaken side by side with the curricular activities. It gives the students an opportunity to develop particular skills and exhibit their non-academic abilities. Activities such as music, art or drama, participating in school sports team, school debating team or student newsletters all comprise of co-curricular activities. They are the true and practical experiences gained by students by their own learning. 

At RISE, the importance of co-curricular activities in education is realised with the teaching curriculum RISE centres follow. Last few months saw RISE centres engage in multiple co-curricular activities to engage the students. In January, AROH Rise centre undertook a cultural event cum excursion trip in association with Akhil Bhartiya Gayatri Pariwar to JNL stadium. An all day long trip saw students witness the famous JLN auditorium, their cultural events, speeches, behavioural tactic training to tackle day to day life and other struggles. Performances by many children were made. Children also went to attend Food Festival at the JLN stadium only. They enjoyed many delicious delicacies and dance along the tunes being played by open bands at the garden. After having lunch and enjoying various cultural, funs, sports and food activities, all of us moved ahead to visit a temple nearby.

RISE centres also celebrated India’s 68th Republic Day on 26th January, 2017. RISE Team with 500 children, educators and slum community members were seen in full patriotic spirits. Republic Day Celebration was organized at all RISE centres Sangam Vihar and Devli, South Delhi. Starting from flag hoisting ceremony, students of RISE expressed their spirit of unity and secularism by participating in drawing competition, chorus singing of patriotic songs like Ae Mere Watan Ke Logo and singing and dancing competitions followed by speeches that reminded the students of the sacrifices made by the freedom fighters. The students were also awarded prizes for best participation to reward the top performers and motivate others.

Apart from the visits and celebrations, children were also introduced to the scholarship programs which RISE centres in association with Akhil Bhartiya Gayatri Pariwar which provided the best performing students an opportunity to realise their dreams. AVGP has enrolled all over RISE children for yearlong activity program. Around 50 well performing children are engaged for scholarship exams which would allow them to tackle hurdles of financial crisis and continue education with obstacles. Children are given books and educators are being trained to prepare well for the screenings. Children were also introduced to using OMR sheet which will be a common practice when these children would appear for higher exams in future. In numerous ways, these scholarships have been tailored for the purpose of ensuring that each student may avail crucial push during their educational journeys, depending on their personal aspirations.

With your continuing support, RISE fraternity is growing by leaps and bounds and RISE kids are looking forward to their bright future.

Hope for solving the massive social problems associated with urban poverty appears to centre increasingly on improvement in the methods of educating the culturally deprived children of the slums. Remedial Innovation  in School Education has long recognized that such children enter school under handicaps not imposed on children of the middle class, that slum children often seem immune to standard instructional programs, and that a relatively large proportion of them quit school early and become misfits and unemployables. Some inevitably drift into delinquency.

Early efforts to increase the less fortunate child's capacity to learn took the form chiefly of remedial classes which are being held under RISE program of AROH Foundation in the Sangam Vihar Slums of Delhi. 500 children are being trained to shift from academic to shop or manual training work, and of providing extra services ranging anywhere from free meals to field trips, from co-curricular activities to scholastic enhancements, from slum to dream for world.  The stress holds a deep root within the psyche of these children and so stress busters like dance, plays, songs, arts, crafts and other workshops have been made essential and regular events of RISE. Cultural events, aligned to existing festivals, become a platform for children to proudly display their talents to the community. The community in turn becomes the owner, custodian, and propeller with its own identity stake to help the centre in its objectives. Blueprints of a holistic development of the child have been drafted after much experiments and researches and are being implemented. A team of 10 ultra-capable educators, a well-qualified management ensures 500 lives are nurtured towards growth, peace and prosperity.

Mohit is a fruit of hard work put up by RISE educators, and his parents. He was a student in 5^th standard in Delhi government school. But at this stage also he was not able to hold pencil properly and identification of simple alphabet was a struggle for him. Coming from a chronic background fighting for meal and money, extra support for better education was not even in thoughts. But Mohit’s mother Sheetala Devi always saw education as a hope towards better life. During one of our RISE awareness campaign, Sheetala Devi came to know about RISE initiative in her region. It took her no time to get Mohit enrolled for the benefits. Mohit has been a regular student since start of RISE in 2016 and now after around 1.5 years, his growth is spectacular.

In her own words, Sheetala proudly says, “Nor just can he hold pencil, read and write but he is one of the best narrators of English poems and essays. Hard work put in by his educators, regular monitoring and his own dedication has made him score well both scholastically and in CCA too. RISE has given him wings to fly.“

Education can be the catalyst needed by these children to pull not only them but their whole family out of the cycle of poverty and disparity. Education will give them the power to dream of a better future and a dignified life with improved food security and also better standard of health. And with support from all teh generous donors, we believe,

We Can & We Will !